Within Me
by The Karnstein
Summary: The final moments of a nurse trapped in a field hospital overrun by ghouls in Warsaw, Poland. Oneshot.


**Within Me  
**

She was a nurse. It was in the job description to be faced with blood and death every single day. She accepted that fact the very moment they told her she was going to Poland with the British army to work in a field hospital. She knew the chances of not being able to save every man brought to her. She knew there were promises she would have to break to the ones who died under her care. She knew there was a chance she would probably never see her husband or daughters again if a stray bullet were to hit her, or their hospital was overrun by the enemy, or a bomb was dropped on them.

But when those monsters were crawling after her, nails flailing in her direction, spit flying from their gaping, hungry mouths, it was beyond any and all comprehension. This was more than anything she had been trained for. The men protecting her fell before these monsters in heaps of bodies. She could hear the bones breaking and the flesh being torn off, she could smell the blood and death in the air, and everything told her to run.

_Run for your life. _

_Don't stop running. _

_Even if you run right into gunfire, don't let them get you. _

_Don't die like that. _

_Not like that._

She tried to run outside, but heard the familiar moans and wails of the monsters. No choice but to run upstairs, get to the high ground, make your last stand there. There were gunshots from upstairs before the rocket hit the building. They had trained her how to use a gun if it when she needed to. She scurried up the stairs, tears streaking her dirty face when she felt her foot barely escape the grasp of those demons. They were gaining on her. They moved slow, but not slow enough.

At the top of the stairs. There was at least one gun. She knew there was at least one gun. She ran across the weak floorboards, knowing they could break from under her at any minute. There! Two bodies, or what was left of them. The detached arm held a machine gun in his hand. She dropped to her knees and in her panic tried to pry off the fingers that held the gun.

They were getting louder. She heard their hands slapping against the steps, crawling after her. The fingers wouldn't budge. She was crying. Desperate, horrified, pissing in her pants, and without thinking her teeth went to the dead fingers, breaking them off of the gun.

The blood from the stump was making a mess on her lap, the fingers broke in her mouth, and those monsters grew louder, and closer.

_Free!_

She reloaded the gun, pressed her back against the wall, took aim for the door. As soon as one of their heads was in sight, she shot it. The brains and skull splattered against the wall. But soon there came another one. That shot missed, but the second one caught him in the chest. His body twisted and fell into the undead mob that forced it's way up the stairs.

Windows were breaking from downstairs. More of that dying, dreadful wailing. It sounded like Hell. She was in Hell. These beasts came for her and would devour her until nothing was left. Sooner or later, she was going to run out of bullets. Sooner or later, even if she used the other gun, she would be unarmed. And more would still come.

_More would still come..._

There was a window. If she held her ground for as long as she could, perhaps she could escape. They would all be on the second story by then. It would take a long time for them to come after her then. With every one of them she shot, the bodies would start piling up. Perhaps those bodies would build a sort of barrier between she and the monsters. It would be harder for them to crawl over so many of their own dead to get to her. They were just zombies, right? They wouldn't think to move the bodies. They would just keep coming.

_And keep coming..._

She was down to her last bullets. It was a neverending game of firing, waiting, firing again, picking them off one by one, but her efforts were not paying off. One more made it's way to the top of the stairs. Two more replaced that one.

_Oh God..._

It was time to run. There was no stopping them. When he gun was empty, she picked up the other one on the floor and had just enough time to load it before the next creature crawled it's way into the room. It didn't take long before it was on it's feet, moving towards her. She rushed to the window and threw it open. Two stories. The fall would hurt but she could make it. The road was empty. At least she could find a new hiding place. At least she would be away from them. She just had to jump.

**_BAM!_**

She knew a fatal shot when she saw it. The bullet came from nowhere, possibly from a sniper, and it struck her in the stomach. She fell out of the window and landed on her shoulder.

Too stunned, too shocked, too devastated to even scream in her agony. It was over. Any chance of escaping was done and gone. She couldn't feel the physical pain immediately. When she could summon the strength to move her legs, her entire body seemed to scream. A sob escaped her when she realized her arm was not only broken, but possibly dislocated.

Those sounds. They were from above, but now they would be moving their way back downstairs. And the ones in the house would soon turn around, come outside and eat her alive. When she could actually hear their footsteps, her cries became inconsolable. Tears and snot ran down her red face and she summoned up all of her strength to roll onto her back. They were upon her now. She took aim with her machine gun and emptied it on one monster's head. He fell backwards, but the other three were on her.

**_BANG! BANG! BANG!_**

A miracle. A miracle come too late, unfortunately. As the three zombies burst into nothing but slop and goo, she caught the faintest glimpse of a shadow rushing into the house. There were more gunshots, more screams, but no more monsters emerged from the house.

But she was bleeding. Badly. A bullet to the stomach was a lost cause. It hit her intestines: she would die of an infection if she didn't bleed out first. Perhaps she could deal with that. This death would be slow and painful, but nothing compared to the horror she would have faced inside of that house.

And suddenly there was a stillness. As if the world had frozen all around her. For a moment it didn't even feel like she was bloody and broken on the street, because all she saw were those glowing eyes.

They belonged to that strange little girl. She had only saw her once: the girl in white, with her large eyes, that cat-like face, and her long black hair. They said that she was a super soldier who came with that young boy, Walter. Why was she here? Did she really kill all of those monsters?

...Why were her eyes glowing? Why were they so red?

The strange little creature steps towards her but her feet don't seem to make any type of sound. When the child knees before the dying woman, her gloved hand moved to her face. The roles have reversed, where the child is the now the nurse and the nurse is now the doomed patient. She can see it in those red eyes. She knows that this girl recognizes a goner when she sees one. She isn't a normal little girl... is she even a girl at all?

"...Angela, was it?" the girl in white whispers. "Nurse Holly Angela."

She had never seen her before in her life, and yet the girl in white knew her name. It hurts to talk. It hurts to move at all. But she nods, and the girl slowly takes her into her arms. Holly hissed as her broken arm shifted even slightly, but the girl kept stroking her face to calm her.

"You have children. You have a husband." the girl whispered. "There is nothing I could have done for you even if I tried."

She tried to make sense of it. Of course there was nothing a little girl could have done for a woman with a bullet wound to the stomach. There was no need for her to feel any guilt over this. She wished she could tell her all of this, but it's starting to get cold now. It's only a matter of time.

Then the girl did something unexpected. She lowered her head onto Holly's face to kiss her cheek. A gesture that triggers a string of memories of Holly's daughters. Daughters she would never see grow old or give birth to grandchildren. Daughters just younger than this girl right infront of her.

"...But I can give you this. And you will live within me. Consider this my mercy."

Compared to the pain she had endured, she almost didn't even feel the bite to her neck. She really couldn't comprehend what was happening to her, only that she was dying. She was dying quickly now. Her strength was deteriorating, her vision was blurring, but the pain was melting away.

And something incredible began to happen.

While her physical senses lingered, she could feel the girl's arms wrap around her, almost as though they were elongating. She felt the arm move around her torso while the other arm held her head up. She could feel the girl's long hair against her face, but it felt as though it were growing, and as it grew it moved along her arms, down her back, even to her legs. It was soft as silk, and yet warm and fluttering, like a bird.

No, not a bird... a heartbeat. A child's heartbeat.

It was the last thing she could feel before her eyes rolled back, but there was no dizziness that came with it. No headache, no strain on her eyeballs. Instead, there was a pull from within her skull. A similiar pull happened in the pit of her stomach, then in her chest. Was she going to Heaven or Hell? Is this what it was like when one died?

No... that didn't seem right. It really didn't feel like she was dying at all. More like she was evolving, or her mind was expanding. Gradually she felt her mind opening, being unlocked by some unusual force. All doubts, worries, fears, wants... they all seemed to clear away, as though someone was washing them out of her mind.

And then she felt another presence gradually easing it's way into hers. It did not feel as though another person were in the same room as she, more like this person was becoming a part of her. She had carried children, felt that connection and bond that came with pregnancy, but this seemed to amplify that connection in every way. It was as if she and her unborn child were sharing the same mind, and yet experiencing the different thoughts. She could speak into the mind of this creature and it could hear her and respond. Intentions, hopes, thoughts, motivations, everything was suddenly becoming clear to her.

At one point, she knew, without even being specifically told by anybody, that this was normally a painful, mindbreaking process. Her gradual and careful transition into what she was now was the mercy she was given for refusing to give up even in the face of death.

Later, she knew that had she been a virgin, things would have been very different for she and the Count.

The Count. The Prisoner. The Little Girl. The Slave. The Nosferatu. The Hellhounds. The Monster who kills other monsters. The Hellsing family's crown glory.

_**Alucard.**_

_"...That's your name, isn't it? You were never really a little girl, were you?"_

_"You know the answer to that now, Mrs. Angela..."_

_"...I am a part of you, now."_

_"You are my familiar. And you will live within me forever."_


End file.
